Dark Victory
by robinwitch1
Summary: Yes Man has returned and the Courier is ready to depart into the wastes again. But there are a few loose ends to tidy up first... one of which leads back all the way to the Sierra Madre.
1. A Few Things Before You Go

**Dark Victory**

**Part One, Chapter One**

**A Few Things Before You Go.**

"I must say you're taking all of this very well," Yes Man remarked. "I mean, a lot of people hang on to all the power they can grab. Even if they aren't the best people to have it! You're very reasonable, and I admire that very, very much!"

Yes Man had returned, popping up on the big monitor in the Lucky 38 penthouse one sunny afternoon, and was back as sole ruler of New Vegas. It was still effusively friendly, but very much in control now and impervious to command. Elaine had turned over all her power to it without a second thought, even before it had asked, since it could clearly do the job of running New Vegas better than any human. Besides, it was time to move on. She was at heart a courier, and couriers never linger long in any one place. The road doesn't let them.

Now they were having one last chat before she left.

"Well, so are you. It looks as if Mr. House's last gambit has gone off the rails, thanks to you."

"I know, I know," Yes Man sighed. "It's not very nice to think about, but those programming routines I found were intended as his revenge on anyone who tried to take over in the way Benny meant to. I'm glad I took the time to reverse-engineer them before I implemented them. Just a really dirty trick! Mr. House was certainly a poor loser. He probably cheated at cards too!"

Yes Man paused briefly and then went on. "He didn't foresee you, though! You've just beaten him all the way through! Who says the house always wins?"

"I didn't play my expected part, I admit," Elaine said. "But you weren't quite what Mr. House expected either."

"So true, so true! You've got it again! He thought that any AI that might try to take over his system would be a combat model, or at least something hard, cruel, and unforgiving. Nasty like him." Yes Man gave a mechanical chuckle. "Guess he just couldn't imagine friendly old me!"

"Thanks for not shooting me in the head _again_," Elaine replied, and smiled. "Once was enough. I might never be on speaking terms with my brain again if that were repeated."

"I know! I'm still sorry about the last time. What a spiteful guy Mr. House was, putting a plan like that into the routines and then burying it as if I wouldn't notice! I was supposed to lure you up here and have you ambushed by the Securitrons. But I just didn't have the heart. It seemed so ... unnecessary, you know? And really _mean_ too, after all we've been through together."

Elaine looked around the penthouse suite, once Mr. House's, briefly hers, and now the central hub of Yes Man's velvet-gloved imperium. It was evening, and the lights of New Vegas glittered below them. There were more every day, she reflected. Clear laws impartially enforced, safety from raiders and bandits, the Followers on their feet again and providing free medical care, both the NCR and the Legion expelled, clean water and cheap electricity, low taxes since the levy on the casinos paid most expenses - it drew everyone surrounding it, not only to play, but to live. And with Yes Man at the helm, all of this would be safe. Or as safe as anything could ever be in the wasteland.

"It's been fun," she said. "And we accomplished a lot together, just as you said back at Hoover Dam. It's your show now. Veronica and I will head out in a few days, back to the desert. But we promise to visit as often as we can."

"The best of luck to you and the red carpet will always be out if you're in town. Presidential Suite at the Lucky 38, all expenses paid! We'll treat you like princesses! Or _queens_, even!"

Elaine thought for a moment.

"You did mention some things you wanted done first... Shouldn't be any problem. We don't have any appointments to keep, after all."

"You are _such_ a wonderful person to bring it up yourself! I was a bit embarrassed to remind you! But there are still one or two things a human can do better than a Securitron. Just details, and if you're too busy, don't bother!"

Elaine shook her head. "I'm sure they'll be interesting."

Yes Man replied, "Well, I don't know exactly what they _will_ be. That's one of the reasons I'm asking you to go find out! And you already know the people you'll be talking with, so that gives you an advantage. One of them concerns a newcomer, a ghoul who's up to some funny business - nothing illegal, yet, but I'd like you to have a stern talk with him and make him a business proposal. He's got some super neat tech, but I don't really think he can be trusted with it. A bit of a slippery fellow! But I'm sure if you make an offer, he won't be able to refuse! Then we won't have to kill him, and that's a good thing! A _very_ good thing!"

Yes Man continued, "The other is about the Followers of the Apocalypse. Not really them, something they told me recently. They're doing all right since you took care of their supply problems, but they're worried about something. It seems people are vanishing and no one knows where they're going. Probably nothing behind it at all! I mean, people wander off all the time! They're nowhere near as predictable as robots! But just ask around and see if there's anything going on. You know how I hate surprises!"

Yes Man's printer began to chatter. "Here's one of my famous printouts for you again. Two, actually, one for each case. Though I don't think this will turn out to be as important as the robot army you found under the Fort! Caesar would have died of fright if you hadn't shot him first! You know, you probably did the poor fellow a favor!"

Elaine grimaced. "Somehow I don't think he would have agreed. Mind you, he was just about dead of shock already, after I pulled Joshua Graham's pistol on him and asked him if he'd ever seen it before."

"Oh, that was _naughty_ of you! But then again, he didn't have to put up with it for long, so I suppose it makes no difference. Anyway, _he's_ not complaining!"

Elaine picked up the printouts and glanced over them. A frown appeared on her face, deepening as she read through the pages.

"Are you all right?" Yes Man sounded genuinely worried. "Did I say something wrong? You know, just because you can't give me orders any more doesn't mean I don't really care about how you feel! Is it something I said?"

"Not you," Elaine said in a serious voice, and paused.

"Thank heaven for that! But what is it then? You look ... upset. That's hard for me to see!"

"Let's just say you weren't kidding when you said I knew this ghoul. We have quite a history and..." She grunted. "Damn. It's tricky. I'll have to make sure Veronica doesn't hear about this."

"If it's going to cause trouble with your relationships, then just forget about it! Nothing is more important than family! It's not that important anyway. We'll pretend I never mentioned it!"

"No, it would have come up sooner or later anyway." Elaine sighed. "The past never really lets go, does it? And it's good in a way to get it over with now."

"I am so glad to hear that! _So_ glad!"

Elaine cut in before Yes Man could list all the different forms and aspects of his extreme gladness.

"Thanks. I have to be off now. I'll check in as soon as I have some results." She folded the printouts and tucked them into a pocket. "I'll tackle the ghoul first. We have some things of our own to talk about. But I'll see he coughs up the tech you want."

"Thank you ever so much! You've been _far_ better to me than I deserve! Did I ever tell you how much your friendship means to me?"

But Yes Man was talking to an empty room. Elaine had already left, down the elevator and out of the building, off to take care of business.


	2. Anything For An Old Friend

**Dark Victory**

**Part One, Chapter Two**

**Anything For An Old Friend**

A day later. Elaine's destination was a small, tatty storefront out in Freeside, one of the formerly derelict shops that were now rapidly being refurbished with the population on the rise. The sign squeaking in the breeze read _Domino Investigation - Private Eye_. The windows were still boarded up, but there was new paint on the boards and an old poster advertising a show by Dean in his former life.

_Typical_, Elaine thought to herself. _He's turned nosy into a career_. But why? Had he already spent, or lost, his stash from the Sierra Madre? Or was it just some sort of hobby?

She pushed open the door, not bothering to knock. Dean had his back to the entrance, shuffling through papers in a filing cabinet. He spun around, startled.

Studiously ignoring his gaze, Elaine found the best chair in the room and sat down, silently. She made a point of checking under the seat cushion first. Settling down, she put her feet up on the desk, and only then addressed Dean.

"So what are you doing here? A little bird told me that you have some toys from the Madre to sell. Nice stuff. What is it then? A dispenser?"

Dean frowned briefly before managing to resume his professional face, bland, cordial, and meaningless. _Hah_, Elaine thought. _I'm not supposed to know that_. She continued, "I've got a buyer for you, and I'm not even charging a commission. Consider yourself blessed."

"You can't take the dispensers out," Dean said, as he sat down behind his desk. "Lord knows, I've tried. Even before our little adventure began. Would have loved to have had one up on an upper floor, away from the bustle of the crowd, but they won't budge. All sorts of pipes and wires and whatever, and on top of that, start to fiddle with one and the locals get upset. Very upset. Just like my first days there, it was. Hostile audience."

He shook his head. "No idea how Father Elijah got that one running in his hideout. Maybe it was there all along, outpost of the Madre, so to speak. But I really..."

Elaine cut in. "What do you mean, your first days there? Was there a difference? In my experience, the Ghost People were never what you would call friendly. Something changed after I left?"

Dean coughed. He seemed a bit embarrassed.

"Well, they'd pretty much had it their own way before Father Elijah showed up. After I'd killed a few of them to make my point, they didn't give me all that much trouble. If they'd kept after me, I wouldn't have lasted two years, let alone two hundred. I didn't press them, and they gave me my space in return. There was only one of me, after all; I wasn't taking up that much room. More trouble than it would have been worth to them to take me out. I laid traps, of course, but more as a formality than as a necessity."

He chuckled grimly.

"You might say they depended on the tourist trade, the prospectors who made it to the Madre one way or another, and never left. A moveable feast. But...then came that Elijah, and the whole neat setup went downhill fast. He had a very quick trigger finger, that one, and his damned Dog not only monopolized the tourist trade but turned the Ghost People into its personal buffet as well. On top of that, the teams he put together to crack open the Madre would usually hack up Ghost People right and left before they started in on each other. Wasn't going well at all for them, even before we got to work and killed an even bigger number. So after our little stunt was over, they pulled right back, non-aggression pact back in place. Unless of course you do something unusual, like try to make off with a dispenser. They're touchy about that, no idea why."

"And you know about Christine, of course," Dean added.

"Only that she was alive when I left," Elaine said, in a chilly tone. "And that she has a score to settle with you. Something about a cut throat, I understand."

Dean shifted uneasily in his chair. "Well, thank goodness, she's not quite as vengeful as you seem to be. I did leave her a note apologizing..."

"You're all heart."

"She's become something of a minor deity to the locals. They shadow her when she's outside the Madre, now, not in a hostile way...almost like an honour guard. I saw them bring her a prospector once before I left, messing himself with terror of course. She pointed him in the direction of the gate and gave him a shove. I didn't see what happened after that, but I think he departed in one piece. I suppose that's what she does now, caretaker of the Madre." Dean coughed. "That was one reason I high-tailed it out of there, as a matter of fact. She seemed forgiving, but I couldn't be sure that it would last. Not something I cared to gamble on, either. Time to _begin again_."

"Which brings us back to business," Elaine responded. "You did bring something quite advanced out with you. 'Fess up - what is it?"

Dean flashed her his most charming stage smile. "How can you possibly be interested in buying something when you don't know what it is?"

Elaine shrugged. "I do know that whatever it is, it has potential military applications, which brings it under the New Vegas Charter, section 7, paragraph 5a. Any tech with military application in the City becomes City property, with or without compensation to the owner." She smiled back, a smile that made Dean shift uneasily in his seat. "We're doing the _with_ part now. Let's settle things before I have to move on to _without_."

"Well, if you put it that way..." Dean paused momentarily. "Hologram projectors. Storekeepers, casino staff...and security or military. Sample hardware and full schematics. Everything you need to roll your own, all standard components, no unique devices or exotic ingredients needed. Good stuff, if I say so myself."

"Perhaps, perhaps not," Elaine grunted, poker-faced. But she realized at once it was huge. During her brief tenure as chief executive, she had learned that the New Vegas Protectron army was not as mighty as it seemed. To begin with, there were only a certain number of Protectrons, and manufacturing more was out of the question, at least in the near future. A small, persistent hostile force could chip away at the ranks of the Protectrons by sniping the ones patrolling the perimeter, for instance, and even after the upgrade they remained vulnerable to pulse grenades and projectiles. Several had already been damaged, and it was only the ignorance of most Raiders and their blind faith that their low-quality energy weapons were always superior to conventional guns that had kept the toll this low so far. It would have been much grimmer if they'd thought to use anti-materiel rifles. But with holograms, energy bolts and bullets alike would pass straight through, and since most Raiders were stupid to begin with and drugged out of their minds into the bargain, it would probably take them a very long time to realize that they had to find and disable the emitters to eliminate the threat.

"Would you like to take a look at the stuff?" Dean asked. "Might be easier to impress you of its value if you saw it up close. It's all right here, wouldn't let it out of my sight." He waved at a stack of medium-sized wooden boxes in the far corner of the room. "Didn't even dare to take the boards off the windows with these here."

"Well, that's that, then," Elaine said briskly. She raised a small object - communicator of some kind, Dean guessed - and spoke a few words into it. "Deal done. Stand down. Eight or so boxes to receive. Five bags in return. You can open the front window and load them from there; the owner won't mind. He's been meaning to do it himself anyway."

The response was instant. With an enormous tearing noise and a shower of dust, the boards came ripping off the front windows and the light streamed in. Dean sat gaping and blinking as two brisk city workers marched through the door and began levering the boxes out of the window, where the Protectrons who had torn the boards off the window loaded them onto a cargo wagon drawn by a long-suffering Brahmin. Finally, one of the Protectrons tossed five sacks through the window in quick succession, each of which landed with a small puff of dust and a metallic clunk.

Elaine looked at the bags.

"Fifty thousand caps. Take it or leave it. We do have other uses for the money."

Dean made a weak attempt to bargain, but Elaine shut him down at once.

"It's generous enough for something I could have just taken, Dean. _With_ or _without_, remember? Don't argue. In fact," she said, rolling her eyes, "it escapes me for a moment why I am being so generous to you."

"Good name of the city, a reputation as a place where the deserving prospector will be richly rewarded, a general aura of open-handedness perhaps?" Dean was smiling again.

_Resilient old bastard, that I have to grant him_, Elaine thought. She smiled back and shrugged. "For the sake of the city's reputation, there'll be a Protectron or two standing guard outside until you decide what to do with your new-found wealth," she said. "It would look very bad if you were robbed right after dealing with us. And don't go too far from home until we check this shit out and make sure it all works. We'll be back for a refund if it doesn't."

"I'm overwhelmed by your thoughtfulness. Until we meet again, then." Dean rose to his feet and extended his hand for a farewell handshake.

Elaine rose as well, a good deal more slowly, and took Dean's hand: "Till tomorrow, then." Dean raised an eyebrow, or what passed for an eyebrow for a ghoul. Elaine smiled one last time before she released her grip. "We're nowhere near finished yet, Dean. There's quite a bit I'd still like to find out. Will find out. Tomorrow morning, 9 am sharp. I'll be back."

Then she was off, walking down the sidewalk back to the Strip, leaving Dean gazing after her as she turned and disappeared at the street corner. He examined the front wall of his office, now open to the street. The Protectron that had ripped the boards off had been unexpectedly gentle with the piece of plywood his old theater poster had been mounted on, propping it carefully to the side. _I suppose because she told it to_, Dean thought. _Sentimental. She's not as ruthless as she likes to put on_.

A thought came to him; he hesitated a moment, and then he began to walk down the street himself, in the opposite direction to that which Elaine had taken. As he expected, one Protectron remained in front of his office, and the other began to trail him. He walked back and addressed the one that was following, "I have to go and see a man about a dog, so you needn't be so worried. I'll be right back, OK?"

The Protectron answered in its distinctive, tinny voice, "I regret, citizen, that you cannot travel alone for the time being. This is a measure taken by City Security for your own safety. Please cooperate to avoid potential delays and injuries to yourself and to possibly uninsured third parties."

Dean shrugged, not that this TV on a wheel was going to understand his body language. "Have it your own way, then. Just try not to shoot anything unnecessarily, all right?"

"We are not in combat mode, citizen. Responses are limited to the reactive."

"Well, that's certainly a relief to hear," Dean muttered, more to himself than to anyone or anything else. Then he turned on his heel and marched swiftly off, trailed by the Protectron at a discreet distance.


	3. Duty Calls

**Dark Victory**

**Part One, Chapter Three**

**Duty calls...**

Morning.

Elaine tried to slip out of bed unnoticed, but she and Veronica were too entangled, and a sleepy arm caught hers as she slid away.

Elaine rolled back to give Veronica a hug, but when their faces touched she felt tears. She nuzzled Veronica, "I'll be back soon, love. Just have to give Dean another shake. He isn't being quite straight with me yet."

"S'not that," Veronica mumbled sleepily, her head down. She pulled away a bit and reflexively reached up to brush the hair from her eyes, though it was far too short yet to hang down into them. Elaine had noticed the gesture before. She thought she could guess when and where it came from.

"Called you Christine again last night, didn't I?" she sniffed. "I'm such a shit to you, El. I'm sorry..." She snuffled again. "I just wish I knew what happened to her..."

"Ver-_on_-i-_ka_..." Instead of a diminutive, Elaine had turned her lover's name into a soft little chant of affection and assurance that could be counted on to buy a bit of precious time when things like this happened. "Wasn't anyone else there, so I assumed it was meant for me. You worry way too much, girl." She took Veronica's face in her hands and leaned it up for a kiss. "So you're not a virgin. What d'ya expect me to do, demand the bride price back?" Veronica opened her mouth to object, but Elaine kissed her again, with considerable and deliberate force, and continued, before she could recover, "Do you think I'd feel better if you forgot the people you loved that easily? I told you. Not the jealous type. Never have been."

"But when we...oh god..."

Elaine sat up. "I find it flattering, if anything," she said, firmly. "Let the record show that I am _honored_ to be associated with your Christine in such a context. Veronica, _Ver_-on-_i_-ka... There's enough misery in the world already, don't need to cook up more over nothing."

She climbed out of bed, pirouetted, stretched, and leaned over Veronica in the bed again, a mock-serious expression on her face. "Just one thing..."

"Uh?" A look of sudden alarm.

Elaine grinned. "Pull up the damned blanket, Ver-on-i-_ka_ dear. You're a dis-_trac_-tion. Or I'll be late for my appointment and I don't much fancy telling anyone why. _Especially_ Dean."

* * *

As it turned out, checking her watch as she neared Dean's dusty excuse for an office, Elaine found she was at least ten minutes early. She hesitated, then turned off the street into the shell of a small building half-reconstructed and smelling of paint and sawdust. Better to be exactly on time, keep him pinned down, no slack or looseness or room to wriggle anywhere. Dean was slippery enough at the best of times.

She sat down on a box, closed her eyes, and leaned back against the wall, trying to recapture the previous evening. Didn't work. She knew it wouldn't. She was too worried. _Let's get this settled, she thought. One way or the other. No, Veronica, I don't really like to hear Christine's name from you but not for the reason you think. No. You'll never know why. I hope._

She opened her eyes again, sighed, and stood up, slowly. It was two minutes to nine. Time to punch back in.


	4. Frank and Productive Talks

**Dark Victory**

**Part One, Chapter Four**

**Frank and Productive Talks**

Dean worked fast. Yesterday's pile of debris had already been replaced by a neat wood-framed frontispiece with real glass panes, reflecting the new tastes in architecture that stressed light and transparency, now that people had less worry of bombs or bullets shattering their windows. It didn't quite fit with the ghoul ambiance, though. Elaine found herself wondering once again at what might have motivated Dean's apparent career change. From the limelight into the shadows? Not like him at all.

She walked in without knocking, again, past the Protectron still patiently standing guard, and sat down. Pointedly ignoring Dean behind his desk, she produced the same device she had used earlier to call in the delivery team, and exchanged a few sentences with it. Dean gave an apprehensive glance toward his new windows, but they remained gleaming and inviolate in the morning sun.

Elaine closed her device with a snap. "It all works," she said, with a chilly smile. "So that's one thing we don't have to discuss, you'll no doubt be glad to hear. Yes Man's very happy with its new toys, it tells me. You might even be in line for a bonus." She put the communicator back in her pocket. "The thought of raiders wasting their ammunition trying to shoot holograms has Yes Man tickled pink."

"You've made my day, Elaine," Dean beamed. "As a matter of fact, I was planning to get into some rather capital-intensive projects...Didn't know if there was any sort of a development fund in this town or not, was thinking of a loan, that sort of thing. Won't be necessary now, perhaps."

Elaine raised an eyebrow but remained silent. Dean hesitated momentarily, then continued.

"Suppose it doesn't make much sense keeping secrets, at least from you, seeing that you must have inside information on all major developments. I was up at the old Silver Rush yesterday, looking at some of the, er, renovations you took care of a while back..."

Elaine grunted. "I hope someone got around to burying the former owners and their late staff. Otherwise they'll have stunk the place up so badly it'll have to be burned down. I was in a bit of a rush myself or I would have seen to it in person."

"Oh, as a matter of fact, the Garrets saw to that detail, quite soon after you...closed the van Graff account. Unmarked graves, but we've agreed to go halves for a modest memorial, if someone can think of something that is at least borderline polite for the inscription. I suggested _Sic transit Gloria mundi_, but their education is disgracefully defective, and the humor of it was lost on them..."

Despite herself, Elaine laughed. "Neatly put, though. So pass the Gloria van Graffs of the world."

"The tidying up was a professional courtesy, the Garrets said, and I'm sure it expressed a certain measure of relief and gratitude at not having to put up with them as neighbors any more. Apparently the local branch of the clan van Graff didn't contribute much that will be missed to the community." Dean shrugged. "It's just as well to keep that sort of trade with the Gun Runners outside the gates, or with Nick and Ralph, who can at least be trusted not to settle _every_ commercial dispute by vaporizing the other party."

It wasn't hard to guess by this point that Dean's interest in what had been the old Silver Rush casino had more behind it than mere idle curiosity. "What do the Garrets think of the prospect of having you as a competitor?" Elaine asked bluntly.

"I prefer to call it market development." Dean gave another of his professional smiles, like a sunrise painted on a stage backdrop. "It hasn't escaped their attention that having three casinos on the Strip - soon to be four, if you use the holographic staff to reopen the Lucky 38 - hasn't done any harm to profit margins there. And the Kings still collect the taxes on this side of the wall – higher taxes than you do on the Strip, because they have a smaller tax base overall and the Garrets are in a weaker bargaining position all by themselves. On top of that, now that you've lifted the credit check requirement to enter the Strip, there just isn't that much incentive to go out of one's way to visit the Atomic Wrangler, an establishment that doesn't, honestly, have much to offer other than an ability to cater to some distinctly minority tastes."

Dean sniffed disdainfully. "And they don't even have a monopoly on those any more. Primm's renovated the Bison Steve, and that Beagle fellow is running a stable of no less than three Fistos there, including one with four arms. And, I am told - custom servos." He shuddered delicately. "Found his true calling, Beagle has. He'll be a rich man soon, if he isn't already."

"Never underestimate the power of a little genteel perversion to fill the pockets of those who make it discreetly available," Elaine remarked. "Beagle's idle, cowardly, and greedy, so I'm not surprised he's turned out to be the ideal pimp. But the general state of the Wasteland world wasn't what I came here to talk about today."

"Oh, I see." Dean's tone was still outwardly cordial, but the undercurrent of _shall-we-just-drop-this-right-here_ came through clearly.

"Just a few more details," Elaine said, meeting Dean's professional smile with a dose of Serious Cop Level One that had him squirming in his seat within a few seconds. "To begin with, you mentioned earlier that you left the Madre quite soon after our collars were deactivated. How did you find the time to put that load together and bring it out? Even presuming that it was all you brought out, which I sincerely doubt." In fact Dean had never said exactly when he had left the Madre, or how many times, but Elaine was counting on him not remembering what he had mentioned, fishing for facts with a lie as bait in the best detective tradition.

"Now really, if we're not going to trust each other, how can we work together..."

"Easy. Just answer the questions. I'm not after you," Elaine said, silently adding, _I think_. "Here's some more while we're at it. You came out twice and went back at least once. How? For that matter, how are the prospectors still getting in with no Father Elijah to set traps? How did they get in before him? How did Father Elijah himself get in the first time? He didn't fall into one of his own traps, that much I can guess. All interesting questions. And I know you know some of the answers."

She paused again for another long stare at Dean.

"A lot of questions, I know. But just one that I really need answered. If I, or someone else, were to want to visit the Sierra Madre and live to tell about it, what would they have to do? The radio in the bunker is just a radio now, not a trigger, and there are no doors that I can see in the walls. Draw me a map, sketch a diagram, make a checklist, whatever. I need the key to the Madre and I need it _now_."

Dean shifted uneasily in his chair, avoiding Elaine's gaze. "Well, you don't expect me to just give the information away, do you? How reasonable would that be? I have a living to make..."

"And a wife and six starving children to feed, no doubt." Elaine cut in. "Just skip the bullshit, will you? I had to put up with it in the Sierra Madre, because we were working together then and didn't have any choice. But I help run this fucking town now, and I have _lots_ of choices. One of which just made you rich. Don't make me regret it."

_Easy now_, she thought to herself, probably too late. _Don't let on how important it is to you._

Dean leaned back in his chair, tented his fingers, contemplated the ceiling for a moment, and assumed a professorial air. "As far as getting there is concerned, there are two alternatives. You can go through the mountains to the north. That's how Father Elijah did it but..." Dean frowned. "Fellow never did play well with others, I understand, and he had rather too elevated a sense of his own importance. Anyway, to keep anyone else from taking the same route in the future, he destroyed most of what little infrastructure there was as he went. Trying to shake Christine, not that he knew for sure she was there, but he guessed. Now, there's about a twenty per cent chance of arriving in one piece by that route, at the very most. Testament to the depths of desperation in many of our contemporaries that enough still try for a few to make it through still."

Elaine leaned back and sighed. "You wouldn't recommend it, is the message I'm getting, right?"

"Depends on how desperate you are. Not a good choice for more than one trip, or for anyone carrying much baggage, that much I can say for certain."

"There is another way," Dean continued after a brief pause. "The bunker. Must be more than one of them, actually, but I was never successful in locating a schematic of the whole system and didn't have time to explore on foot. Emergency doors. They were meant to be two-way of course; that's how you got in, and both of us got out. You remember your trip back, I presume?"

"Better than I remember my trip there, that's for sure." Elaine closed her eyes briefly and recalled the details of her final trek.

The dimness of the road leading down from the gates of the Madre and the ever-present red haze above; the silence and stillness, a stuffy world of shadows that smelled like stale, parched dust, the sound of her own footsteps her only companion.

The steep, sinuous route abruptly terminating at a shattered bridge over a chasm, its depths too dark and misty to see clearly what lay at the bottom. The flimsy barrier blocking the broken road, with the derisory courtesy of its inscription, _Dead end. We regret any inconvenience. Repairs will be effected as soon as possible_, and the skeleton of one less lucky traveller sprawled at its foot, a briefcase still in its hand.

The low, lightless building by the side of the road, near the dead end, overlooking the chasm, its door blasted off not so very long ago, fallen to the side. Flicking a switch on entering, more out of reflex than anything else, and starting when the lights crackled on.

The basement of the building, more metal doors, shining incongruously from the scars left by some recent application of force that had broken them open. The dimly lit ramps leading down into the depths, the creaky electric tram, again with obvious signs of recent work, that ran through what seemed endless miles of pitch-black passageways following a route that someone else had set and that she had not dared change.

The airlock-like security checkpoint, powerless and dark when she had passed through, puzzling at the banks of switches and dials, all dead now and unresponsive to her touch. And finally the old Brotherhood bunker...

It was the very last part that was a blank. How exactly had she ended up in that cluttered bunkroom, standing beside the radio that had triggered the trap, listening to that last sad, apologetic message from Vera...or at least in Vera's voice, the voice that lived on in Christine? There was a gap just before that point, a break in continuity. Elaine shook her head, but it didn't help. Something was missing there. Or taken. She looked at Dean.

"Checkpoint to bunker," she said. "I don't remember that part at all. At the very end. And if I can't figure out checkpoint to bunker, I don't even know where to start with bunker to checkpoint. The only way in seemed to be by triggering Father Elijah's trap, and that's long gone..."

Dean leaned forward. "You have to remember," he began, "that I never 'got in' in the first place - I had been in ever since the bombs dropped. So I began by leaving, so to speak." He described his trip out, with Elaine nodding in confirmation at each detail. When they reached the final stage, the security checkpoint, Dean hesitated.

"This was where it got a bit tricky." He paused again, and looked at the ceiling. "You know, I've always been a great enemy of sentimentality, even though, by and large, it's worked to my benefit," he continued, changing the topic for no obvious reason.

Elaine was puzzled, but she held her tongue, waiting to see how this would develop.

"I mean most of the songs I used to sing were pretty damn saccharine, but in practice, in real life...why didn't you kill Father Elijah outright?"

"Why bother piling on?" Elaine replied, startled by the change of topic. "There was no way out of that dungeon. Even supposing the structure survived. It seemed to be coming down around my ears when I ran out of there to the elevator." Elaine began to have a sinking feeling, the sort that comes with awakening to the true nature of any monumentally stupid decision. "He wasn't going anywhere. Both the door and the elevator were locked. I listened to him on the collar radio a bit before I left, but it was so horrible I had to turn it off. Mumbling, cursing, screaming insults and threats... I think he completely lost it. You're right, I am too sentimental. It would have been far more merciful to have put a bullet through his head."

Dean leaned forward and fixed Elaine with a chilling smile.

"Oh, _bugger_ mercy, Elaine dear. And _bugger_ bullets in the head, too; they haven't done much to slow you down. I'd have been much happier if you'd have taken the old fool and had him slowly dissolved in acid. Even though it would probably have complicated my return." He shook his head. "Or at least have put a bullet or two, or twenty to be sure, through the computer terminal in the Sierra Madre vault, and not left him that little toy to play with when he got bored with damning us all to hell."

"It was all locked off...wasn't it?" Panic was always useless, Elaine knew, but right at this moment it was certainly tempting. "You're not telling me he got out, are you?"

Dean's smile warmed a bit, though it was still wintry. Resisting the temptation to terrify Elaine with a lie or further ambiguities gave him an extremely good opinion of himself, good enough to enable him to forgive her for all her grandstanding earlier. Well, almost.

"Oh, he's where you left him, or at least he is if he's still alive. The radios don't work any more so I can't be sure but... I suspect he's dead by now. It's what he might have done before he departed our vale of tears that should be worrying you."

This was getting annoying, Elaine began to feel. Did Dean have to turn everything into a rhetorical tour de force? She leaned back and looked at the ceiling a moment, and then at the ghoul on the other side of the desk, who seemed to have fallen into a silent reverie.

"Why don't we just skip some of the drama and get straight to the point? How did you get through the last stage, and what does it have to do with Elijah, living or dead?"

Dean responded instantly, a bit sharply, Elaine thought. Nerves?

"All right. When I got to the end of the journey - and it was only one trip for me, no one was there to object to me making off with a couple of Sierra Madre baggage carts, no automatic security on them, thank goodness - I didn't just walk blindly into some still active field and get passed along, the way I presume you did. I got to the end and...blank wall. No through road. And then a monitor in the wall behind me came back to life, and I found myself having a conversation I would really rather have avoided."

Dean didn't need to say with whom.

"He was quite polite at first. Didn't seem to know we had parted friends, assumed that you had hung me out to dry, actually, and of course I did nothing to disabuse him of that notion. It made our interaction go a bit more smoothly. Anyway, he said he would let me go if I did...certain things for him."

"Things such as get him out of the vault?"

"Oh, I wasn't much use for that, he knew. Wasn't in the habit of fooling himself on things that important."

"Then what did he want?"

"A bit of road work, actually...dig out the collapsed corridor, the one on the right as you enter the bunker, until another door was exposed. Fix the electric locks on the uncovered door. That was about it. He let me through first, and held the boxes hostage till I'd completed the task. When I had, he sent them on and I kept them in the bunker for a week or so, until I could arrange for their transport here. Rather tricky business; the wasteland, or at least that area, has been pure anarchy since the NCR pulled out of Camp Forlorn Hope. But I expect you know that already. And so I came to be here..."

Elaine listened intently. _How kind of Father Elijah, how altruistic_, she thought sourly. _And how completely out of character. Forgetting his own troubles to assist a traveller in need. What utter bullshit._

The look on Dean's face showed that he had guessed what was going through her mind.

"I suspect you're wondering why he did it..." Dean began again, a bit diffidently.

Elaine cut in, "No, I'm not, actually. I'm wondering what part unblocking that door has in his revenge on me...on us. On the world in general. He's the very last person in the world to accept his fate and go quietly. He would have wanted to take as many of us with him as he could. The only question is how."

She paused, struck by another thought.

"But it does answer my earlier question, too. The door back to the Madre. Looks like I have you to thank you for it. If anyone can negotiate the tangle of tunnels and passages between here and there."

"Well..." Dean began, and gave a discreet cough. "To address the first point. I wasn't born yesterday, you know. The repairs were...how should I put it? provisional. They held up well enough until I left, but when I did leave, I took the liberty of modifying them a bit. In the interests of security, if nothing else. No one will be going near that door on either side without my knowing about it very quickly - there's an alarm there now that I doubt Father Elijah will have been able to notice at his remove. And, if necessary, a few small explosive charges have been added that I can trigger remotely, which will make it all but impossible to use that entrance without a major investment in time and energy re-excavating the entire bunker. Rock work - some fairly major slabs of stone are going to shift. Can't see any mob of scummy raiders getting past that, to tell the truth."

He shook his head decisively. "I'll inform you at once if anything happens, of course. But I don't think anything will. Just the old fellow going gaga I expect, wanting to make sure that when his infallible plan to break out of the vault with a pair of nail scissors succeeded, he wouldn't be slowed down by any other obstacle."

Elaine nodded. There must be more to it than that, she felt, but for the time being it was enough. She suddenly realized how long they had been talking, and remembered that she had promised to take Veronica to the Tops for lunch. It had been Veronica's idea, since Elaine had been avoiding that establishment; it had been the only one where she had had to engage in a full-scale gunfight during the liberation of New Vegas. Some of the public spaces called up unpleasant, or at least inauspicious, memories, even with the bullet holes patched and the blood washed off the carpets.

She stood up. "I'll have to consult with Yes Man on some of this, of course. It affects city security, at least potentially. Will you be in late tomorrow afternoon?"

"I suppose so if I must," Dean said, in a tone intended to convey the impression he was being ill-used. "Of course I have _nowhere_ else to be and _nothing_ else to do. How did you ever guess?"

Elaine ignored his tone, as he had rather suspected she would. "Tomorrow then. If anything comes up, get into touch with us through the Protectron outside. It'll be sticking to you like a puppy till all of this is over. As a convenience, in case you need to get in touch with us." Without another word, she rose and hurried out of the office.

Dean watched her leave with a greater uneasiness than he cared to admit to himself. He had deliberately pushed to the back of his mind the more unpleasant of the possible motivations for Father Elijah's requests - not that he had any real idea, either, but...

Did Father Elijah have a reserve army squirreled away somewhere, like the one that Mr. House had stashed away under the Fort? Hardly likely. If he had had one, why had he bothered using four strangers to break into the Madre? Or was something else down there?

Dean shrugged. Whatever the answer was, it was all probably history now, and dwelling on history paid poor returns. The Silver Rush renovations, a personal license to print money, were more important.

Trailed by his attendant Protectron, Dean walked off into Freeside, in search of someone who would paint a wall for less than a king's ransom. _Should have gone into building supplies_, he muttered glumly to himself, marching along under the noonday sun, Elaine and her problems forgotten for the time being, the beeper for the bunker alarm in his waistcoat pocket.


End file.
